


A Living Sacrifice

by Laughsalot3412



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Lymond's Experiences with Sex: A History of Trauma, Lymond's relationship with his body is an interesting thing, Multi, Philippa is awesome, Self-Destruction, Self-Loathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:25:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughsalot3412/pseuds/Laughsalot3412
Summary: Lymond had always known exactly how much his body was worth.





	A Living Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> Lymond has such a nasty, complicated history with sex AND is such a consistently sexualized character that I really wanted to try to get inside his head on this issue. Cower before my angst-filled result!
> 
> The title comes from the King James Bible: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

The Scottish sun was warm at last, and the two children were taking full advantage. They ran hand in hand, the boy careful to lead the girl on smooth paths that she could not see.

When they collapsed at last, the boy held a strawberry under the girl's nose. "Open your mouth and you'll get a treat."

Christian Stewart made a face.  "I'm a girl, not a bird."

"Promise you'll like it."

"Francis!"

"Honest."

She opened her mouth. When the juice hit her tongue she smiled, and he, delighted, smiled back. 

"They're the sweetest they've ever been, don't you think?" she asked. 

"I suppose so." There had only been one.

She knew his voice so well. "You haven't had any!"

"I will later."

“ _Francis._ ”

He recognized that serious expression on her face. His playmate had witnessed an Injustice, and there would be no peace until the world had been set right. 

Then, her face brightened. She reached out her hands for him and he bent forward obligingly, letting her small fingers dance across his face. Her hands were as familiar as his own. 

"Here," she said, "I have an idea."

Painstakingly, she made sure their faces were aligned, their foreheads and noses pressed together. 

He lost his composure and she started giggling along with him, their breaths mingling hilariously. 

They were both still laughing when she pressed her sticky lips against his. Just for a second, like his mother did every night before bed. It felt friendly and familiar, the way Christian's touch always did. 

Then she drew back, grinning triumphantly.  "Now you can taste it too.”

He licked his lips experimentally. She had been right, the juice was very sweet. "Thank you."

"It's alright," she said generously. "Want to go to the creek?"

He took her hand again and they set off together. 

 

  

Growing up in Midculter, Lymond knew himself to be inferior when it came to physicality. His brother and his father had made it obvious--an arched eyebrow, a pointed comment. 

 Then there was the battle of Solway Moss and his subsequent capture. Lymond was in the hands of the English, a younger son with nothing to recommend him. He stood before Lord Douglas straight and proud, because he knew he wasn't Richard. Pride was all he had. 

When Margaret Douglas came to inspect her husband’s prisoners, she was imposing and terrible. She looked at Lymond and smiled. "Well, well. With some gifts, apparently, the second son was not begrudged."

His first, innocent thought was that she somehow knew that he could speak four languages and was working on a fifth. Or possibly his skill with a pen and sums. Up until now, the only use for his body had been to house his mind. 

There were other uses for his body. That night, a servant escorted him to her room and he learned them all. 

 

  

"Being my catamite agrees with you, I think." 

Margaret ran her finger along his cheek, which was rosy with exertion. 

Lymond rested on the bed next to her, gazing up at the painted ceiling. He folded his arms under his head. "I certainly never realized the strenuousness of the position. I am developing quite the musculature. My father will be so proud. He likes a good set of muscles, my father. Manliness is next to godliness, I suppose, though you won't find that in the gospel of...mmph."

She thrust two fingers into his mouth, silencing him. Her eyes were narrow as she watched. "I have one use for your mouth, my pet. Remember it."

  

 

That year was the first time Lymond exchanged sex for information, with a visiting French courtier who had news of Scotland. 

It wasn't much different than warming Margaret Douglas's bed to save his own skin. She had shown him a universally accepted currency, and it turned out he was richly endowed. 

The Frenchman was greedy and demanding. He didn't have the patience to teach new mechanics to a young man, fresh out of boyhood. The whole endeavor proved...unpleasant. Lymond took a bitter satisfaction in that.

 

 

From his time in the galleys, Lymond chose to remember the blisters on his hands and the bite of the lash. He sometimes remembered the rhythms of the drums.

Everything else, he locked away.

It had happened. It was over now.

Move along.

 

 

Rumors about his reputation never bothered him until he was home and they started coupling his name with familiar ones. 

One member of his ragtag gang of outlaws said, laughing, "They say the blind ones make up the difference with their other senses. The master is a lucky man to have the Stewart girl at his beck and call!"

Lymond flayed the man's back before turning him out. 

He would rather slit his own throat than lay a finger on Christian. The thought made him sick with a nameless, swooping horror.

 

* * * *

 

Richard had seen him bloody, hysterical, catatonic, and covered in his own vomit. Lymond wasn't sure why it felt any worse for his brother to see him in French court half-naked and lightly dusted with sugar. This guise was closer to the actuality of him than anything else. Richard wouldn’t like the reminder of his brother’s nature, but the truth was the truth.

Never mind how it felt to see his brother’s stricken expression. There was a job to be done and he was just the fallen angel to do it.

Lymond kissed Richard lightly on his lips and skipped away. 

 

 

Thady Boy lived for the endless sex of the French court. He was a character created out of a man's shadow and nightmares---a changeling. Whatever nourished his spirit burned Francis Crawford's like holy iron. 

Thady Boy attended a private event that soon turned into a writhing knot of grasping fingers, wet mouths, drunk breath. Thady laughed through it all. He arched his body and spread it out for anyone who wanted it. 

Everyone did. 

Lymond had made Thady a gross, disgusting creature, but it hadn't mattered. Regardless what dirty trappings he hung himself with, the French court seemed to scent the core. If there was one thing instinctual to the French, it was how to use a slut. 

While Thady accepted slices of peach, Lymond wondered idly if any alteration would be enough to render himself immune to such attentions. 

Someone’s plump hand traced his collarbone. 

For example, what if he, Crawford of Lymond, had no legs? 

All that much easier to subdue. 

What if he had no tongue?

Why, then there could be no inconvenient protests. 

If he was dead, they could simply position his body to their best advantage. That was probably the simplest solution, after all. 

"What amuses you?" The voice was purring and feminine close to his ear. 

Thady leaned into it. "Everything, my lovely. Absolutely everything."

 

 

Oonaugh used her body to give pleasure with so much practiced skill it bordered on professional. Lymond could predict every turn of her wrist, every kiss, every movement. He'd used them all before. 

Every minute they spent together confirmed what he'd suspected: they'd learned their skills in the same school, from similar tutors. 

He wanted her loyalty, of course. He wouldn't be in her bed if he didn't. Before they'd begun, he'd had some vague ideas about how he would win it.

But the longer she touched him with those familiar, clinical strokes, the less he could bear it. 

He flipped them so she was beneath. She gazed up, unconcerned and unsurprised. 

She was so cold. Lymond was freezing on top of her. Together, the two of them were ice grinding together, splintering and cracking. 

It can't always be like this, he thought desperately. My god, will it always be like this?

He changed his goal, right in the moment. Just to _try_.

He bent his head and kissed her lightly. Soft, gentle kisses, like a new lover might give. If it was spring and if they were in Scotland and if they were friends, he would chase the taste of strawberries in her mouth just like this. 

She drew back, singed.

When she tried to regain control, he caught her hands and held them. "Rest tonight," he said. "For the sake of both our souls."

She didn't understand, but she let him do as he pleased. 

That night, he made himself into sunlight. He worked harder in her bed than he ever had before. He showered her with warmth and saw her melt into forgetfulness.

His hands were still cold.

 * * * *

  

First Will Scott, then Robin Stewart, now Jerott Blyth. It was apparently too much to ask that men follow him without wanting to make love to him. 

Lymond spent that year at Saint Mary’s being devoured by hot, hungry eyes.

Gabriel, at least, wanted something different. Gabriel Malett wanted to _fuck_ him.

That difference was enough to ensure that Lymond slept light as a cat and never without a knife close at hand. Exhaustion was a small price to pay for safety.

 

  

Joleta Malett was a viper in the shape of an angel. Lymond hated her. 

Alone in the bare room of the inn, he handed her back the garments he had torn. 

"For you. What's soiled should look soiled, don't you agree?" 

She was furious. Red spots stood out on her cheeks like poison. "Why are you being so cruel to me?" She tried to conceal it, weaken her voice to a tremble. "I asked you to be gentle."

"Oh yes, the tears complete the picture," Lymond said softly. "Tender little crocodile."

Her rage overcame any plan she might have had for tonight. Pretense abandoned, she lunged at him, quick enough to get under his guard and shove him back against the wall. She wasn't strong enough to keep him there, though, and Lymond soon had the positions reversed. 

She was a deceitful, devilish thing squirming in his grip. Oh, how he loathed her. 

"Go ahead," she hissed. "Hit me. Kill me. I know you want to."

"And leave your saintly body for the people to mourn over? No, my dear, no."

He kissed her instead. They might as well have fought. When he pulled back, both their mouths were bleeding. 

"No saints here. Let us act like what we are," he said. The words felt ripped out of him from some deep, painful place. 

Joleta stopped trying to scratch his eyes out and instead twisted one hand into his hair until he felt it rip. 

She sneered into his face. "Would you hate me so much if I reminded you of someone else?"

This time, she was the one who kissed him, and she bit hard into his lip so that they both tasted the blood. "Someone other than you?"

He pushed her onto the bed, and when he got close enough, she grabbed him around the throat and pulled him down. 

For the next few hours, they destroyed the room as steadily and passionlessly as they destroyed each other. 

Joleta had a small ivory-handled knife that she introduced into their game. It was a pretty thing, like her, like him. It was sharp enough to kill. 

She drew a line of blood on his chest and smiled at her handiwork. "Don't flinch away, Mr. Crawford. What's soiled should look soiled."

He let her slice half her gruesome star before Richard shouted at the door. 

  

* * * *

 

It wasn't that he minded that every sheik and Arab lord assumed he was sleeping with the closest available man. But just once, Lymond wished someone would assume he called the shots in the bedroom. A man had his pride, after all. 

 

  

 Mikal offered himself and Lymond refused.  When he looked at the beautiful, warm body laid out on his bed, when he considered what bedding the man might be like, all he could see were icy strategies.

Lymond could perform _thus_ , if he wished to foster attachment. Likewise, _thus_ , if he wished to express gratitude. _Thus_ to give the illusion of wild abandon. And so forth and so forth. 

Mikal was offering kindness, maybe even honesty. Lymond did not wish to offer him frozen lies in return. Truly, his body had nothing else to offer, and so he refused. 

That much integrity, at least, he could maintain. 

 

  

Lymond had always known exactly how much his body was worth. One hour for a private confidence. One night for a secret. Three nights for safe passage. 

How much to save a child? 

Gabriel asked him, "Why are you not my slave?"

Because his body could not pay the price. Not to a man like that, whose greed was an endless void. Only the world would do. 

All his years of whoring and he could not purchase this one, precious thing. 

 

  

Philippa told him to sleep in her bed.

Lymond noted, detached from himself, that she was about the age he had been when Margaret Douglass made the same command. 

His hands were dripping blood. A child's blood. His child. God, the child...

He was going to stain her pretty nightdress. 

Silently, Philippa covered him with the blanket and then turned away, giving him privacy. As the minutes ticked by in the darkness, he realized that her goal had been achieved. He was being welcomed, not coveted.

Francis brought his hands up to cover his face. She expected nothing from him. She wanted nothing. 

No, that was untrue. She wanted him to be warm.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic only goes through Pawn in Frankincense because that's all the further I've read! I'm sure I'll write another chapter that reflects all of the happiness that undoubtedly fills the last two books.


End file.
